Senate panel seeks report on cess collection in Fata

Says Cess Act has not yet been extended to tribal areas

ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) on Friday asked the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) Secretariat to submit a report within 15 days on the background and current rules applied in the tribal areas regarding collection of cess from mines and mineral sector.

The committee observed that collection of cess on mines and minerals by political agent administration was illegal because the CESS Act has not yet been extended to Fata.

The members of the committee also remarked that mines and minerals sector was already paying taxes to the federal government and double taxation was unjustified.

The panel recommended that Political Agent of Mohmand Agency should set up verification offices for CNICs and domicile at tehsil level to facilitate the public.

The committee meeting was chaired by Senator Hilalur Rehman and attended by Senators Muhammad Saleh Shah, Aurangzeb Khan, Taj Muhammad Afridi, Sajjad Hussain Turi, Ahmed Hassan, Khanzada Khan, Sitara Ayaz, officials of Ministry of SAFRON and Fata Secretariat.

Political Agent of Mohmand Agency Mehmood Aslam gave details of income and expenditure of welfare fund of the agency from January 1 to December 31, 2016. He said total income earned by agency was Rs122 million, expenditure was Rs112 million and closing balance was Rs92 million.

Talking about the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) cases, he said that from January 1 to December 31, 2016, at least 51 different cases were registered, while 34 were disposed of and 17 were pending and around Rs4 million worth of penalties were collected from the criminals.

To a question, PA Mohmand Agency said under National Action Plan, 596 operations were conducted that led to 2,000 arrests, killing of 1,086 alleged terrorists and deportation of 2,925 Afghan refugees.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2017.